Denver Seminary

David Bentley Hart, The Doors of the Sea. Where Was God in the Tsunami? Grand Rapids, MI and Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans, 2005. $14.00. x + 109 pages. ISBN 0-8028-2976-7.

Elie Wiesel, Night, newly translated by Marion Wiesel. New York: Hill and Wang, 2006. $9.00. 120 pages. ISBN 0-374-50001-0. [original French version, La Nuit, 1958; first English translation © 1972, 1985.]

Two books appeared recently that caught my attention�one new, the other a new translation. I am neither a philosopher nor a systematic theologian by trade. I�ve taken my share of courses in both disciplines as part of my education, but I decided that exegesis and biblical theology were more to my liking. I continue to read in the field of theology. And I dabble to a lesser extent in philosophy, most recently by participating in a study group that read some of the works of S. Kierkegaard and A. C. Plantinga, among others. Of course, being a NT exegete and seminary professor requires that I engage both disciplines to some degree, though I realize I do so more as an engaged observer than an expert. This said, I took on these two volumes that raise the ever-knotty theological and philosophical problem of the existence of evil. These two books raise the issue to the forefront�one a response to the natural disaster, the tsunami of 2004; and the other a response to a human disaster, the Shoah, a Hebrew word meaning �desolation� that has come to be the preferred term for the Holocaust by Jewish scholars.

Wiesel, of course, is well-known. A Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1986�and the recipient of numerous other awards�he has published over forty works of fiction and nonfiction�and is a professor at Boston University. First written in French in 1958 but now issued in a new translation by his wife, the book recounts his experiences in 1944-45 as a sixteen-year old with his family of being forcibly removed from their town in Transylvania. It details their transfer under unspeakable circumstances to Auschwitz and then to Buchenwald, where his father died. But beyond the physical is the spiritual, for Wiesel struggles with the absence of God amidst the horror. He writes, �For the first time, I felt anger rising within me. Why should I sanctify His name? The Almighty, the eternal and terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent. What was there to thank Him for?� (33). Then upon seeing the crematoria, he records this lament: �Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever. � Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes� (34).

Hart, an Easter Orthodox theologian, has taught at a variety of institutions. His reflections on the devastating tsunami entitled �Tremors of Doubt� in the Wall Street Journal (31 December 2004) drew so many responses of all kinds that he expanded it into this little book. It is his theologically and philosophically informed response to the horrendous disaster in Asia. The writing is incisive, learned, and elevated; get your dictionary ready. And the book is pastorally incisive. What do we say in view of the suffering in the world? He tackles the ancient question of theodicy: how can an allegedly good, loving, and omnipotent God allow such a tragedy? Or does the tsunami disprove God�s existence? Do events like the tsunami serve some ultimate divine purpose? Is it merely a random result of the forces of nature? Is it malignant and evil? If random, where is God? If evil, where is God?

Of course, to some people, such horrors�occurring either in the natural world or as the result of human atrocities�show how unlikely it is that a good and powerful God exists�or at least a �God� worthy of the name. Hart responds to these critiques�in both Voltaire and modern atheists. More briefly he sets aside the �fundamentalist� reply that the tsunami is simply God�s judgment on the heathen [a judgment also voiced in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina]. Hart rejects the liberal platitude that welcomes the disaster because of the valuable lessons it can teach. Yet, what Hart finds most disheartening are those who engage in, using his words, �more plausible misstatements of Christian teaching that were harder to ignore� (26).

Hart�s response to these constitute the bulk of the book. In a concise and refreshing way he develops the biblical account of God�s goodness, a discussion of God�s freedom, the nature of evil, and how God effects redemption in the very fallen world in which we live. Though he does not directly mention the Shoah/Holocaust, I found his observations illuminating when pondering Wiesel�s book.

What are some of the wrong-headed Christian responses in Hart�s view that he counters? One: the tsunami disaster was a direct expression of the divine will whose counsels it would be impious to try to understand (i.e., who are we to question God�s purposes and actions?). Another: the tsunami may have �epistemic significance� in that such events show us aspects of God otherwise unknowable [whatever they might be!]. Another: such tragedies give us the chance to participate in Christ�s sufferings [though the tsunami wiped out mostly Muslims!]. To cite only one other: somehow, God works out the balances of rewards and punishments in the world and thus even such a tragedy will bear some spiritual fruit for the sufferers and all humanity [tell that to a mother whose child drowned in the sea or whom the Nazis tortured].

Common to all such explanations is the central tenet that �there is a divine plan in all the seeming randomness of nature�s violence that accounts for every instance of suffering �� (29). That is, God is behind these events. This tenet plays out in sermons in such words as, �God is in control of every detail of life.� Such appeals to a divine calculus uphold God�s sovereignty, but, Hart believes, at the cost of collapsing all that occurs to an expression of the divine will, a result he finds scripturally and philosophically incoherent. If all history is merely the expression of God�s will, then atheism or Gnosticism are more moral alternatives! When Hart uses such language as �dread sovereignty� or says that the �heresy of limited atonement� � �completely contradicts Scripture� (89), he feels such wording is justified by the biblical case for God�s goodness and freedom.

What is his alternative? Though he does not imagine for a moment that God cannot turn evil into his own good ends, he insists, again both biblically and philosophically, that evil�suffering and death�in themselves have no true meaning or purpose at all. He finds this conclusion the most liberating and joyful aspect of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We live, insists Hart, in a world that is the setting for the monumental struggle between the rebellious principalities and powers that currently hold sway and menace its inhabitants�between them and a loving God who will finally win out and whose glory will transfigure all things. God�s designs for the world and its people are only and thoroughly good. This means, consequently, that during this age God�s will can and is being thwarted�no less than by some of God�s human creatures to whom God has given free will.

As I noted, Hart engages the passion of Voltaire�s objections to theism. But more subtly Hart tackles Ivan in Dostoyevsky�s The Brothers Karamazov who also asks where God is in the midst of human atrocities. Hart shows how different are the two perspectives, since Dostoyevsky engages the problem of evil from a Christian point of view. For Dostoyevsky no easy optimism, pagan fatalism, or empty logical determinism will do. God is truly free and thus evil can have no place at all in his being or purposes. God�s relation to evil is to overthrow it, �� taking all suffering and death upon itself without being changed, modified, or defined by it, and so destroying its power and making us, by participation in Christ, �more than conquerors�� (81). What is Hart�s view of providence, then? It is God�s work from all eternity to bring his good purposes to a glorious conclusion despite the rebellion of his creatures. Thus the entire history of sin and death �is in an ultimate sense a pure contingency, one that is not as such desired by God, but that is nevertheless constrained by providence to serve his transcendent purpose� (83).

Nothing evil, neither the atrocities that humans perpetrate against each other like the Holocaust nor natural disasters like the tsunami, have anything to do with God�s work or purposes in the world. They are unmitigated evils in response to which God works only to forgive, to heal, to dethrone, and to conquer. To say that the suffering of a little girl can be meaningful in that it may lead to some �greater good� is an evil of immense and irreconcilable proportions, Hart asserts. God may bring some good out of it, but that does not justify the evil�s existence or show that God was behind it. It may comfort some to imagine that behind evil or suffering is some ultimately beneficent purpose of a God who will use them for his glory, but Hart alleges that the cost of such comfort is indefensibly great. He says, �� it requires us to believe in and love a God whose good ends will be realized not only in spite of�but entirely by way of�every cruelty, every fortuitous misery, every catastrophe, every betrayal, every sin the world has ever known� (99). Against such a �god� Hart recoils�with good reason, I think.

It would be presumption of the greatest degree for me to attempt to enter into Wiesel�s personal struggle of faith, but perhaps I can be allowed to make some tentative observations. To give his creatures rational free will was a price God was willing to pay in his grand purposes for the universe. That humans abuse such freedom to cause unspeakable misery on others or to ravish the creation grieves God and does not serve his purposes. Apart from some prophetic explanation, we have no warrant to say that God was using the Nazi evils to bring about judgment against the Jews (or Gypsies, Polish nationals, homosexuals, or Jehovah�s Witnesses for that matter) or to accomplish some ultimately beneficial ends, any more than that he caused the tsunami to bring about some ultimate good. Sinful people with free will do awful, unspeakable things. Continental plates sometimes shift producing earthquakes that cause death to thousands.

Can God accomplish good ends despite and through such evils? Yes. But God responds to them and works in their aftermath; he does not initiate them. And, obviously, God does not choose always to halt the evil even though he possesses such power. We can find no satisfactory answers to explain in given instances why God chooses to or not to intervene. Holocausts and tsunamis happen, and they are unmitigated evils. But evil will never thwart God�s will or defeat his plans. To put the matter like this will raise objections�some might accuse me of picturing God wringing his hands wondering what he will do or how he will bring good out of such messes. But such objections are straw-men kinds of caricatures that do not do justice to the biblical view of God.

Is Hart�s the only answer to the problem of evil? Of course not, and readers will find various places to object (in fact, so many people reacted so violently to his WSJ article that Eerdmans prevailed on him to produce the book). His defense of divine apatheia, impassibility (God cannot �learn� anything; indeed he cannot change in any way), will raise objections for some. Others will take exception to his view of the nature of evil, human freedom, or determinism. Whether or not you embrace all Hart�s conclusions, the value of the book consists in the questions it raises, and the answers it forces us to formulate for ourselves as we seek to minister to people who have experienced suffering and loss, whether caused by other humans or by the forces of nature. Many in our country reel over the devastation caused by the hurricane Katrina. What loss of life and property! Was God present in it? The February 12, 2006 issue of the Denver Post featured an article about a Denver Seminary graduate whose son died at the age of three days because of a heart defect, and who now serves as a chaplain in a Denver area hospital. Where was God in this loss? As I write this, many mourn the murder of a beloved police officer in Colorado Springs. He was, apparently, the model peace officer, but was shot as he sought to make an arrest. Why do these things happen? Can God�s ways be clarified in view of such tragedies? How do Christ�s ambassadors communicate God�s love in a world wracked by sin? Hart�s book calls us to examine our answers to these kinds of questions.

William W. Klein, Ph.D.
Professor of New Testament
Denver Seminary
March 2006

• Month
• Agenda